Tutor Notes:

We discussed the outward facing element of this unit. It might be interesting for your progression if you think of your role in your explorations and artivisms. Are you an explorer on an expedition where you are logging the observations of the behaviour of the water? Monitoring its characteristics and patterns and noting down your living experiences? This might give purpose to the written element of the unit and a function for your role as an artist.

You have opted for a critical review. Keep an open mind about this as it can incorporate factual reports of the water’s behaviour, almost like a scientific report. Ultimately it needs to build up your critical thinking around your practice.

The theme of Above and Below are good anchors to base your practical experiments around and build up a body of work. Using the water as a resource and capturing the debris etc on supports (experiment with absorbency of materials, calico etc before going large). Don’t be too
precious of the aesthetics but rather work with the ugliness, the imperfections and the dystopian matter you collect.

This dichotomy can represent the love/hate relationship to the water.
The fact you will be doing work as site specific mini projects is public facing. Also, the fact that you will be provoking awareness through the artwork- artivism can be seen as public facing. You can start to consider the audience in later projects.

● In future think about the impact of your artivism and how much you want to push this. Some artists transform environmental data and ecological crises into immersive, visual, and experiential works but this might be too big for you?

● Consider the format of the support (e.g.calico) to emulate the log river bed so you can work with scrolls, uneven surfaces, edges that are thick and thin. Again, adding to the imperfection.

● Have a look at Tan Zi Xi (MessyMsxi): Created the Plastic Ocean installation using 500kg of discarded ocean plastic, visualizing the severe reality of marine pollution.

● Not sure if I mentioned this group before?- https://www.groundworkgallery.com/groundwork_projects/river-art-and-activism/

● Callum Wallace ‘Tomore Canvas walk’

My Notes:

My understanding of this unit is working more externally than internally, outward facing towards and audience. I would still like to continue my love/hate relationship with water, but move it away from own personal experiences of flooding. Still collaborating with found objects and the open water both lake and river water. I would like to try some experimentation with fabrics, we agreed the first two or three projects were acceptable for this, trying not to be too tight.

We agreed the theme of Above and Below continuing in the dichotomies of love hate and how each piece would have two parts, gritty and raw and not to be precious if the pieces work out quite ugly and imperfect.

How am I going to face my audience? What does the work mean to me?Provoking environmental awareness through the art world.

Using different supports I’ll walk the rivers edge, look at the different consistencies of those supports and the outcomes. Being site specific is already public facing.

For the written element we talked about a CR as well a possible report, or another form of critical thinking, collect different stories that are meaningful and factual. Think about a diary, and explorer, document my findings of the river.

We talked about my on going collaborations that I’ve instigated with a group of students from different disciplines and to continue to share this work with my tutor.

Fellow student Vicky and I will start our own collaboration associated with water, we both come at this from completely different angles and are both looking forward to getting started.